Talks - Living in Harmony with Intuition

Living in Harmony with Intuition

Living in Harmony with Intuition

Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami
, 2010-02-01

Living in harmony is a challenge for everyone at one time or another. Present opinions in ways that maintain harmony. Abstain from excessive talking as it stimulates unnecessary internal thinking. Observe, identify and tap Intuition. Practice Summa iru.

Unedited Transcript:

Good morning everyone.

Two items this morning. First one is from today's Living with Siva lesson, from importance of harmony and resolving inharmonious conditions. Thought I'd read just a couple of lines.

"There is no group of people on Earth for whom living in harmony is not a challenge at one time or another."

That make you feel better? Nobody exists where it's not a challenge at one time or another: Living in harmony.

"But it is true that among my devotees we have zero tolerance for disharmonious conditions of any kind.

"One of the principles of harmony is that commitment to harmony has to be greater than any commitment to any particular issue or problem. Problems change, but the strength of harmony has to be the ultimate priority. This is a conceptual tool to use when differences arise."

In other words: Sometimes when we're passionate about something we place being right above being harmonious. We place our opinion and the success of our opinion and being accepted as being more important than being harmonious. So Gurudeva's saying that it's not wise to do that. That's having those priorities that having your opinion accepted is more important than maintaining harmony can easily lead to an inharmonious condition. So, what Gurudeva's saying is we have to maintain harmony and then we can only have discussions and present opinions in a way that maintains that harmony otherwise our priorities are reversed or our priorities are externalized.

You may recall we were talking a few weeks ago about intuition. And we developed a keynote, power point presentation on intuition based upon Gurudeva's book -- the book on Gurudeva's visions. And I showed part of it which was the idea of tapping intuition, how to tap intuition, and that Gurudeva gives a key for that process in Cognizantability which has to do with observation. We can identify that part of us which has an intuitive thought if we're observant and we can cultivate the ability to be observant, you remember, by abstinence from excessive talk. Talking too much causes the mind to chatter too much. In other words: Externally talking stimulates internal thinking or unnecessary chatter. And that covers up or makes it hard to identify an intuition when one comes to us.

Intuition comes to everyone particularly in times of danger or times when something's very important. Intuition comes to everyone but we don't identify it as intuition because there's not enough observation going on in the mind to know that that's an intuition verses that's a memory or that's a guess.

So we're getting a wonderful resource. It's called "The Guru Book." Line of guru book and I tried it and it worked. I looked up something and I found it and came up with a whole story that I wouldn't have had. I had two lines in my notes. My 1972 notebook from Alaveddy. It said, something like this was is all I had; and you'll see how it gets beautifully developed in the story.

"Yogaswami was standing at the corner talking up, he said: 'No orders and didn't get in.' Car came back he said: 'I've got my orders and I got in.'"

Something like that. That's my note. That's all I've got. So you can see how all this comes out beautifully in this story.

"Yogaswami worked in intuitively, responding to those who came according to 'inner orders.' In explaining this process he once said: 'I do nothing. I can do nothing. Everything you see, that is done by what comes from within.'

"Another time, he said: 'When you come here, what will happen was settled long ago. We go through it; you bring it, but it all happened long ago. Sit and be a witness.'

"He advised: 'Boldly act when you receive orders from within. You need not wait until all details are in order. If you wait for everything to be worked out, you may miss your chance. Have faith and do the work that comes from within. Money will trail after you if you are responding to divine orders. Helpers will come. Everything will come. you have only to follow carefully that which comes from within.'

"When asked how to find one's inner voice he said: 'Summa iru. Be still! Be still and what you need will come to you.' "Summa iru" was his constant command. He practiced it and heeded the answers that came. Someone would ask him a question and he would wait to feel his orders. If he felt no orders, he would no nothing until orders came. Once a man drove up to Swami as he was walking through town and asked if he could drive him anywhere. 'No orders,' Swami replied and waved the man on. A few minutes later the driver came by and stopped again. 'Now I have my orders,' Swami said, and got into the car."

That's the story, much nicer than the version I had before. Car not getting in and car getting in.

Of course, what can we see from this? Gurudeva and Yogaswami's advice on how to find one's intuition is the same, just the wording is different. Gurudeva's saying: "Abstinence from excessive talk."

Yogaswami's saying: "Be still."

Same thing, right? When do you tell a child to be still? Well, one of the reasons he's talking too much. Making too much noise.